Echoes from history

History has an uncanny way of re-enacting itself. And it did so brutally last week when security agencies pulled the rug from under the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) regarding the Edo State governorship election billed for September 10.

The Police and Department of State Security (DSS) had on Wednesday, barely 72 hours to the scheduled poll, called a joint press conference at which they advised the commission to shift the election. They cited intelligence at their disposal that terrorists planned to strike in some parts of the country during the present festivities, with Edo being among states marked for such attack. “While election is important, the security agencies cannot allow the peace of the country to be disrupted, and we will continue to remain vigilant and ensure consolidation of the successes gained in the current counter-insurgency fight. It is in regard of these that we are appealing to INEC, which has the legal duty to regulate elections in the country, to consider the need for possible postponement of the date of the election in Edo State in order to enable security agencies deal decisively with the envisaged terrorist threats,” they said in a statement.

I am privileged to have a fair idea of present-day workings of election administration in this country, and I would say unless the security agencies had previously reached out to INEC in confidence with this intelligence and had been rebuffed by the commission, it was curious in the extreme that they chose a press conference to give their advice. All security agencies are together with INEC core operators in the Inter-Consultative Committee on Elections Security (ICCES), which does risk assessment and designs customised security architecture for every election. That committee was formed under the former commission led by Professor Attahiru Jega, and my understanding is that it is still very much functional. It is jointly presided over by the INEC Chairman and the Office of the National Security Adviser (NSA), and meets serially ahead of every election for definitive risk and security mapping. That the intelligence cited last Wednesday slipped through the crack is, speaking minimally, awkward.

But it did anyhow, and obviously put INEC on the back foot. The electoral commission, following the security press statement, locked down in consultations with various stakeholders to get a handle on its next steps. You could well touch the commission’s dilemma. It began mobilisation for the September 10 election many months ago – with attendant quantum expenses, and not minding statutory provisions regarding time frame. National Commissioner Adedeji Soyebi specifically said 10 out of 12 conditions for the poll were already successfully met. And I happen to know that conducting elections is like steering a speed train: the momentum begins sluggishly, and builds up gradually until it hits cruising speed; you would as hard pressed in seeking to prematurely demobilise as you had been gathering the momentum to cruising speed. And that, of course, is not counting the sheer waste of expenses already incurred.

Take my word: that was the reason the commission balked at the security advice to postpone and, in consultation with stakeholders, initially resolved to press ahead. But while it was gratifying to see INEC fiercely assert its independence, the brutal truth is that the practicable date for conducting elections in Nigeria isn’t at the behest of the commission alone – never mind express provisions in Sections 76 (i), 116 (i), 132 (i) and 178 (i) of the 1999 Federal Constitution, as amended, as well as allied provisions in the 2010 Electoral Act, as amended, conferring it with sole power to that effect. Proof? When INEC said it was late in the day to shift the poll because it already had everything in place and was therefore carrying through on September 10, security agencies simply pulled their services. Well, the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) Directorate could not in good conscience deploy its own wards that constitute the entirety of INEC’s Election Day staff, and so it also pulled them out. That scenario effectively left INEC as a brave general gallantly carrying on into battle, only to realise his rear was exposed because all accompanying troops have withdrawn from the push. What other reasonable option was available in such circumstance? The commission bit the dust, backed down on its umbrage, and rescheduled the Edo poll to September 28.

There is the answer to anyone yet querying why the former Attahiru Jega-led commission had to reschedule the 2015 general election by six weeks. The elections were originally fixed for February 14th and February 28th, but had to be shifted to March 28th and April 11th. In that instance, former NSA Sambo Dasuki advised the commission to postpone – citing then raging insurgency in the Northeast behind the scene, but flying the kite of purported insufficient level of Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs) collection by eligible voters in the open. The debate on poll postponement is often a hot button partisan issue, and it was convenient for some partisans and their supporters to seize on Dasuki’s grandstanding and scapegoat the electoral commission for alleged insufficient PVC collection and allied allegations of its unpreparedness. But the crunch line for INEC was the categorical pronouncement by the apparatchik that they could not guarantee security for the elections.

In the course of its consultations with stakeholders, the commission articulated two major posers namely: (i) should it ignore the strong security advice and proceed with the elections; and if it does, what alternative security arrangements were available? Or (ii) should it take the security advice and adjust the election schedule within the constitutional framework? Most stakeholders failed to address those posers and rather pitched into polar partisan sentiments. For INEC though, the issues at stake were beyond narrow passions: if the security services would not guarantee security and there were no alternative security arrangements, should the commission in good conscience deploy more than 600,000 staff – mostly youth corps members – in an environment where their safety was up in the air? If there were security breaches as Nigerian elections were prone to, and someone gets hurt, or worse, who takes the blame? Would the commission not be guilty of murderous carelessness for deploying people in an environment it well knew before hand had no security guarantees? Indeed, would INEC staff themselves accept to be deployed for the elections, knowing that their safety was not assured? Wouldn’t the elections therefore collapse ab initio if the staff decline heading out to polling units on Election Day because of lack of security guarantees?

If you asked me, the shame in all these is that we have to depend so heavily and fundamentally on the active role of security services to conduct elections in this country. I had the privilege of observing elections in some countries where you would not see more than routine auxiliary security personnel at polling precincts on Election Day, which is a normal day like any other, without the encumbrance of movement restrictions. Prior to the rescheduling of the Edo poll, there was a vexed issue about its disruption of the General School Certificate Examination timetable. But by their constitution in the United States, general elections hold on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November of every election year, and they do not have to shut down the country to hold those elections. And you would not even scantly find any behaviour by voters, or politicians and their supporters to warrant such shutdown. It is a big shame that our own electoral culture here compels such central role for security agencies that they could, as it were, hold the dice on the electoral commission.